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kevs · Nov 3, 2003, 10:17 PM

The worst thing about Safari for me by far, there is not a close second, is that when I click on the bookmarks bar, the beachball comes up for 40-50 seconds.

I had another thread on this somewhere else a while back and no one could figure it out.

Now there is a new twist: the beachball comes up and does not go away unless you do a force quit.

I can access the bookmarks through the menu until someone can figure this out. Any ideas appreciated. thanks!

eevyl · Nov 4, 2003, 02:32 AM

You may have something severely broken in your setup. Tried with a new user? Did you recently did a fresh install?

lenox · Nov 4, 2003, 10:22 AM

In the Safari menu on the menubar, there are two options that may help (just be sure to backup your bookmarks even though they seem to be the problem) :

Reset Safari...
Empty Cache...

Hope that helps.

kevs · Nov 4, 2003, 11:48 AM

Don't think it's any of those. Will try them again. Any other ideas appreciated.

OAW · Nov 4, 2003, 12:04 PM

If resetting Safari and emptying the cache doesn't work, you might want to delete and re-create your Bookmarks file because it sounds like it is corrupted. And if that doesn't work you might want to simply delete Safari and reinstall it. I had a problem where Safari was crashing nearly every time I entered text in a text box. The only way I could fix it was to reinstall the application. I never could figure out why it started freaking out all of a sudden, but OTOH I wasn't one to argue with success. As always, YMMV.

OAW

kevs · Nov 4, 2003, 05:31 PM

Thanks AOw, yes after I get on board with Panther, I'll reinstall, reset etc. But, BTW I don't think it's the bookmark file becasue it works perfectly in Explorer and Netscape. Also, I've got over 500 bookmarks spread out over 14 folders, so it would be real pain. Any other suggestions appreciated!

proton · Nov 4, 2003, 05:56 PM

Originally posted by kevs:
BTW I don't think it's the bookmark file becasue it works perfectly in Explorer and Netscape.

Safari uses an entirely different format of Bookmark file to IE and Netscape. Safari's bookmarks are stored in ~/Library/Safari/Bookmark.plist (~ is your home folder).

- proton

kevs · Nov 4, 2003, 09:07 PM

Yes, I know where it is. And the same bookmarks work perfectly in Explorer and Netscape.

wataru · Nov 4, 2003, 09:23 PM

Originally posted by kevs:
Yes, I know where it is. And the same bookmarks work perfectly in Explorer and Netscape.

How is that? Safari's bookmarks are in plist form; Netscape and Explorer use HTML.

eevyl · Nov 5, 2003, 03:46 AM

He is saying that he doesn't have that problems with Explorer or Netscape, not that they are using the same exact set of bookmarks.

However, I reiterate, you must have something very bad in your setup. Try reinstalling, or wait until you get Panther to do it.

Big Mac · 04:54 AM

I'm glad the original poster raised the topic of bookmarks because I have a minor concern about them. Maybe I'm just losing my mind, but there doesn't seem to be a way to insert a separator between bookmarks in Safari, a feature which every other browser has. When Safari imported my IE bookmarks, it removed all the separators, and now I know why-they just don't exist in Safari.

And an additional point comes to mind. Why did Apple have to make Safari's bookmarks even less compatible by not using HTML? Not only does it reduce compatibility and lock us into the plist format, it prevents a user from viewing his or her bookmarks in a web page view. I always found the ability to do that pretty nice. It's really unfortunate that Apple felt the need to totally abandon types and creators for the sake of "compatibility" and then the programmers turned around and decided on a non-standard bookmark file scheme. Now we're stuck with ugly, mandatory file extensions, some of which don't even make sense from a compatibility standpoint, and we also have an incompatible bookmarks file. Oh well. . .

kevs · Nov 5, 2003, 11:39 AM

thanks:
Actually I back up the Safari bookmarks and have seen the "plist" extension, but have never thought much about it and did not even know it was different than Explorer or Netscape.

So let me ask, what is plist and what is different about it from html, and how can this be part of what's causing my original and continuing problem.

Big Mac:
Tell about the seperator between bookmarks. I have not noticed a seperator in Explorer.

Big Mac · Nov 5, 2003, 12:28 PM

The separator I'm referring to is called a divider by IE 5. If you go to the Organize bookmarks submenu of Bookmarks, you'll see Insert Divider is one of the choices. Browsers usually use a horizontal line as a divider, but it would be more consistent given OS X's guidelines to use a blank space as a divider. Safari should have this, and it's just a bit annoying because I'm finally starting to get my bookmarks in order again, and there are entries that are closely associated enough to be in the same folder as long as there's a divider between them.

Plists are different from HTML, and that's why Safari's bookmarks aren't compatible with the rest of the browsers. That has nothing to do with your issue though. You need to either try a new bookmark file (simply drag your current one out of the Safari folder in your Library) or reinstall Safari.

Love Calm Quiet · Nov 5, 2003, 12:41 PM

He may *think* that the bookmark lists are the same (they may be supposed to have name names & URLs), but it sounds like the Safari version is corrupted.

(drop the .plist for Safari on TextEdit and you will quickly see that it is an XML database - not an HTML file like Explorer)

kevs · Nov 5, 2003, 01:40 PM

Big mac, "safari bookmarks are not compatible" -- are you sure, because with Safari bookmark Exporter, I have brought the bookmarks from Safari into Explorer with no problem -- maybe I don't understand fully.

When you say put in a new bookmark file, you mean re-create all the bookmarks I now have (which work perfectly with Explorer?) I think that would take about six months to do.

Still, anyone know why having a p.list as opposed to html could be causing this problem?

eevyl · Nov 5, 2003, 02:10 PM

If your bookmarks file for Safari is corrupt, your best way to go is delete it alltogether and make a new one.

If you have the bookmarks in Explorer, you can reimport again those bookmarks.

nbnz · Nov 5, 2003, 05:04 PM

I would suggest re-importing the your IE bookmarks. You can't do it manually from Safari (for some unknown reason), but you can reset Safari to re-import them...

1. Quit Safari
2. Delete (or move) the bookmark file: ~/Library/Safari/Bookmark.plist
3. Open Terminal
4. Type: defaults delete com.apple.Safari IEFavoritesWereImported
5. Hit return
6. Close Terminal
7. Open Safari, it should automatically import the IE Favourites.

Hope it works, otherwise try deleting all Safari files and reinstalling.

kevs · Nov 5, 2003, 08:29 PM

sorry I don't go into terminal withour a guide and a wetsuit, but perhaps I will export my bookmarks into Explorer (with shareware/freeware Safari exporter) and then import them into Safari. It's sounds crazy. Still appreciate any other idea not expressed yet. thanks!

kevs · Nov 5, 2003, 10:32 PM

New News:
While I have had huge headaches with Safari and getting the beachball after selecting bookmarks bar. This is worst it's gotten so I assumed that it's same issue progressing worse.

But discovered a new twist, so Safari may not be a fault.

Just discovered that when I was control clicking in any app, word, excel etc, I would get beachball that wouldn't go away.

Same thing in print center trying to add a printer.

I did disc warriour rebuild directory, and computer would not restart. Progress bar said," waiting for your local disc"

I just added two new Lacie 312GB external FW drives and already have an 85GB one. Were they inhibiting the startup?

I disconnected the FW drives and now everything seems ok for now. I reconnected the drives and things still ok -- for now.

What fixed it? Disc Warrior, or disconnecting the drives. So maybe it was directory corruption or something about having too many FW drives going on.

The initial complaint about Safaris bookmark bar bringing up beachball still a valid one, but think it's important to give the whole new picture. Any comments appreciated. Obviously this is becoming an OS/hardware issue and will go to a new thread eventually. thanks!

(print center still can't add printer)

wataru · Nov 5, 2003, 11:59 PM

Originally posted by kevs:
Big mac, "safari bookmarks are not compatible" -- are you sure, because with Safari bookmark Exporter, I have brought the bookmarks from Safari into Explorer with no problem -- maybe I don't understand fully.

When you say put in a new bookmark file, you mean re-create all the bookmarks I now have (which work perfectly with Explorer?) I think that would take about six months to do.

Still, anyone know why having a p.list as opposed to html could be causing this problem?

You don't seem to understand how bookmarks are stored. Bookmarks are stored as names, i.e. "Stan's Homepage," and URLs, i.e. "http://www.stan.com," in a text file. The format of that file can vary from browser to browser. Safari stores them in XML form, while Explorer stores them in HTML form. When you said "the same bookmarks work in Explorer," you made it sound like the same bookmarks file works in Explorer, but that's not possible because of the format difference. It may seem to you that they are the same, but that's only because you happen to have the same websites stored in both. If you open Safari's bookmarks (~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist) and Explorer's bookmarks (~/Library/Preferences/Explorer/Favorites.html) in a text editor, you will see that they are in fact very different. Also note that adding a bookmark to one does not affect the other.

What some people have been suggesting is that the file containing your Safari bookmarks is corrupt. This would not affect your Explorer bookmarks, as they are in a different file.

Thor · Nov 6, 2003, 06:25 AM

1) Drag and drop:
~/Library/Preferences/Explorer/Favorites.html
...onto a Safari window.

2) Add to Bookmarks.

3) there is no step 3.

ryaxnb · Nov 6, 2003, 12:14 PM

Yeah, you must have something wrong. Try moving/deleting that plist file everyone is talking about; it might be corrupted.

kevs · Nov 8, 2003, 08:11 PM

UPdate:
Just installed Panther, and the original problem remains. And I don't think the plist is corrupted, becasue a friend from the forums sent me his plist which has lots of bookmarks and the beachball comes up as well for 30 seconds -- after quitting and relaunching Safari.

Maybe it's something in the hardware. I do see that beachball more than I'd like. thanks for ideas.

kevs · Nov 16, 2003, 12:01 PM

Good news. Just reinstalled Panther with purer archive and install method, and the Safari beachball problem seems to have gone away!